Local restaurateurs yesterday took the first step towards establishing an association against the backdrop of complaints of the difficulties faced by the industry and the lack of any organisation to lobby on their behalf.

“We need a restaurant association. We need to come together,” declared Norma Shirley, the respected restaurateur who owns Norma’s on the Terrace at Devon House in Kingston.

“We (the industry) need to be monitored,” she said. “It can’t be that anyone can just open a restaurant or a catering business and this just be accepted. It does all of us who are serious and trying hard a disservice.”

Shirley’s call resonated with other restaurateurs, caterers, as well as food and tourism officials who attended a seminar sponsored by the Observer at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, on the challenges facing the restaurant industry. In fact, participants mandated Shirley and Garrel Ferguson of the Rib Kage, to lead a steering committee to initiate the association.

Yesterday’s seminar was a collateral event to the Observer’s annual Table Talk Food Awards, which will be held tonight on the east lawn at Devon House. The special guests will be award-winning American chef and entrepreneur Andy Husbands and his wife, Gretchen. The Husbands operate three restaurants in the Boston area and another in nearby Providence, Rhode Island, and Andy Husbands was among the presenters at yesterday’s seminar.

Restaurateurs painted a picture of hard work, few incentives, little support and no one to speak up on their behalf in the framing of policy.

But Audrey Marks, chairman of the Tourism Product Development Company, told the restaurateurs that she heard the same complaint a year ago but the restaurant industry had done little to organise itself.

She warned that the sector was unlikely to get little by way of concrete help from the government, including agencies such as her own, unless it was in a position to clearly articulate its needs and lobby for them.

“You know what you need,” Marks said. “The government is an enabler.”

Among the things required by the sector, according to restaurateur Anil Sud, are incentives of the type available to other tourism-related interests and access to financing.

“Restaurants have to have the same incentives as hotels,” said Sud, who owns two restaurants in Ocho Rios – Passage to India and Coconut’s Café and Bar.

“. If you go for a loan from a bank the bank won’t talk to you,” he added.

Peter Bunting, an investment banker who heads the firm Dehring, Bunting and Golding, agreed that financing a restaurant in Jamaica was not likely to be a project that a bank would easily take on. Part of the problem, he said, was that banks were unlikely to have had experience in the sector.

Nonetheless, Bunting felt there could well be the effective demand for good restaurants in Jamaica – once it was worked at.

“You have to create the demand,” he said, arguing that the economics of eating out should not be a deterrent. The greater problem was likely to be cultural.

“From my experience, there is sufficient income in the market presently to support more dining out,” said Bunting, who said he developed a habit of eating out as a student in Canada in the 1970s. “It’s just important for restaurant owners to create compelling reasons for persons to choose dining out so as to command a greater share of that wallet.”

The need to create an environment to entice people to eat at restaurants regularly was supported by Gassan Azan, the owner of the Bascho stores and the MegaMart superstores.

Azan described himself as “one who frequently dines out”, including on his frequent business trips to Asia.

According to Azan, dining out for him was for more than food, but included the total experience. Restaurants and decor were important components of that experience.

“I take note of the décor, and of the overall service as much as I do the food,” he said.

But participants also stressed the need to develop a culture of service and respect for the industry, backed by training, if Jamaica is to make substantial headway in the restaurant sector and broader food business.

These notions were largely embraced by Husbands, who underlined their relevance whether in Jamaica or in Boston, where he operates.

Husbands also offered the audience a list of values, in descending order, which he believed underpinned the success of his enterprise.

He said: “The first is “us”, that is my wife and myself; and the team, the people we have working for us; the community, which goes a little wider than that; then our customers; then our purveyors or suppliers; and then profits.”

In defending this order of values, Husbands said that if his staff were demonstrably happy in their jobs and were earning well, then there was a greater likelihood of customer satisfaction and thus, a higher probability of profits.